Babatunde Osotimehin’s daughter recounts his last moments

Taiwo Debo-Akande is one of the 4 daughters of a former Minister of Health and Executive Director, United Nations Population Fund and Under-Secretary-General, UN, the late Prof. Babatunde Osotimehin who died in New York sometime in June 2017. Taiwo Debo-Akande is the third child of the late Prof. Babatunde Osotimehin. The first is Babajide, a US-based medical doctor, and the others are Omolola, Kehinde and Omotobilola.

In a recent interview, Taiwo Debo-Akande recounted her late father’s moments. There were reports he reportedly died while watching television. According to Debo-Akande,”My brother lives in Maryland (US) but works in New York. He had gone out, came back and he greeted him (Daddy, e ku ile). But he didn’t respond. My brother is a doctor so he tried to resuscitate him using CPR and then he called 911.”

How is she taking the death of her father?She further said,” I was absolutely devastated. He was my go-to-person for everything. At every juncture, he was there to direct one. We are extremely proud and in awe of all his achievements. However, what was always more important for us was having him in our lives, not only as dad, but as our friend, confidant and advisor. He was absolutely everything to us.

“I am going to miss the regular conversations with him, just talking about nothing in particular (laughs). He was that simple. When one sat with him, he didn’t talk about his visit to Syria or Afghanistan, he didn’t bring his work home. When it was time for family, it was family time. I’m going to miss checking my next steps and my business decisions with him. I know my siblings are going to miss checking their careers and decisions with him too. We are going to miss sharing the moments with him. No detail was too small. He wanted to know everything.”